Posts Tagged ‘Catalina’

The last couple weeks I’ve completed two newer period mysteries and one fantasy title, all through supplied review copies. Two of them fit together pretty well because they are both period Americana mysteries.

One is “The Good Know Nothing” by Ken Kuhlken, “A Tom Hickey Novel” set in 1936 Los Angeles, Catalina Island, and other parts of California. The book is absolutely steeped in Great Depression California history and characters who actually lived in that era. The language, the settings, the music– everything about the novel feels authentic to the era. The cover write-up says this is the last of the Tom Hickey novels. That’s a shame as I am just getting to know this smart LAPD cop and detective. It will be worth going back to read the earlier books in the series, but this one stands on its own very well.

Tom Hickey is trying to keep his marriage to a Big Band singer together, be a good father to his young daughter, and still be a good detective for the LAPD. He also tries to be a good brother to his sister who is a personal assistant to evangelist, Aimee Semple McPherson. Tom had been the responsible “parent” for his sister since their father disappeared after being accused of killing someone. Years later, a friend of the family receives a manuscript for a book, “The Death Ship” that had been published under another person’s name, B. Traven, but the friend says their long lost father claims to have written. The book is considered a modern classic and they attempt to woo the author back. When someone other than their father shows up, Tom and his sister, Florence, believe their father has been killed by someone who then claimed their father’s work as their own. The search to find out what happened to their father leads them to the likes of Harry Longabough (aka Sundance Kid), William Randolph Hurst and his mistress Marion Davies. I was hooked almost from the first chapter on “The Good Know Nothing.”

My second mystery read was another in Reavis Z Wortham’s “A Red River Mystery,” “Dark Places.” This novel is set in the era of flower children in 1967. Pepper, the 14 year old grandchild of our protagonist, Constable Ned Parker from Center Springs, Texas, decides to run away with her sometime boyfriend, Cale Westlake in hopes of reaching San Francisco to start a new, carefree life. The trials and tribulations of being on the road with very little money and no food or supplies soon brings both Cale and Pepper face to face with reality, but not before they run into trouble with some underhanded store owners, some pimps and prostitutes and a bunch of hippies, and a motorcycle gang. Meanwhile, Ned goes after Pepper and meets up with an American Indian named Crow who has some ulterior motives for helping out.

“Dark Places” is a nostalgic ride down Highway 66 from Texas to Barstow exploring some of the darker sides of the “summer of love” in 1967. I enjoyed this book every bit as much as Worthham’s other books in this series.